There's a human element involved with refereeing. Yes there's certainly some calls that players have earned over time. Fred Hoiberg is right, Isaiah Thomas carries the ball, a lot. Shaq's response to Hoibergs comments were perfect though, he said this is nothing new, he said Mugsy Bogues and Allen Iverson did the same thing and I agree. There are some double-standards... Are they imposed with malicious intent? I don't think so.
The Wizards-Celtics series was extremely physical one of the games where it was a slugfest then turned to the Jazz-Warriors series and immediately a bunch of cheap fouls were called on Rudy Gobert. If you choose to interpret that as favoritism it's easy to see how you could convince yourself of it. Good reffing to me adjusts to the ebbs and flows of the games, when I complain about the refs, which isn't often it's usually because of one sided-ness. To me UNC got tons of favorable calls throughout their entire tournament run this year to the championship specifically at the end of the Arkansas game, all of the fouls with De'Aaron Fox in the kentucky matchup (and the non call when he got blasted on the final play of the 1st half) and then the cheapies called on Zach Collins in the chip game. Those are amatuers tho and I think they were human element mistakes, not collusion or conspiracy, certainly weren't superstar calls Fox got treated like a nobody by those refs...
There's a quote from a great movie Pi that applies;
"When your mind becomes obsessed with anything, you will filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere." - Sol
I really think thats the phenomena we see when people complain about the refs, they have a vested interest, then they hear conspiracy and all of a sudden it's everywhere.
crap happens. I am not really opposed to players earning some superstar calls though, but it shouldn't be like with Shaq where they dont call fouls on him that are clearly fouls because he's so overpowering. To be the champ you've gotta beat the champ, I'm not saying it should be like Boxing judges, which is in-fact crooked - I don't mind that having to beat the champ thoroughly to be the champ element though, that to me is a legit way to pass the torch. Thats my 2cents anyways.